The Only Thing Open on Christmas Night
by DoublePlusAwesome
Summary: It's Christmastime Shore Leave for the Enterprise! Kirk plans to spend his vacation alone on the Kirk family farm. Spock plans to stay on the ship and do research. LAME. So Kirk, on a whim, invites Spock to come along with him to Iowa for Christmas.
1. Chapter 1

Okay, seriously? This was absolutely the last straw.

_BWAAAARP! BWAAARP! BWAAARP!_

James T. Kirk breathed what must have been his thirteenth sigh of exasperation today, and tossed a wad of mismatched socks into the open suitcase on his bed. Taking leave of his clusterfuck of a suitcase, he paced quickly to the touchscreen on his bedroom wall and tapped the according link, connecting him to the bridge. As the call went through, the Red Alert signal stopped. No doubt called off by the man at the other end of the line.

"Kirk to bridge."

"Aye, Captain. Scott here."

"Mr. Scott, what exactly is going on up there? We're two hours out of port for god's sake; can't you hold her together for that much longer?"

"Aye, Captain! I do apologize fer tha noise, sir! She's just anxious to be home, like the rest of us! Ah, it's um..." Kirk could hear some rummaging from the other end, as Scotty looked over his system readouts. "Give us a second, Captain. I know the lads down in Engineering are runnin' some minor tests. Tryin' to get a head start, as it were... Likely just set somethin' off. Perhaps if I could go and see to it myself, sir... I could sort it out in no time."

Kirk pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. He could feel another migraine coming on.

"Yeah Scotty, that's fine. Is Sulu there?"

"Aye, Captain. That he is."

"Okay, pass it along and do what you gotta do. I'll be back up there soon, anyway."

A little extra cheer came into the Scotsman's voice as he replied, "Ah, very good sir! I'll set those boys straight. A few of 'em still a bit too green, eh? Like they dinnae know how to treat a lady..."

He could already hear him shuffling out of the captain's chair and heading towards the turbolift. Oh, Scotty. Man was never happy outside of that engineering room. He tolerated command of the bridge when he had to, and was more than capable at doing the job. But when his time there was up, the engineer all but skipped back to the bowels of the ship.

"Very good, Mr. Scott. Mr. Sulu?"

"Aye sir?"

"Let's just get us home in one piece, shall we?"

He could hear the toothy grin the young pilot's voice, "Aye aye, sir. I heard that."

"Kirk out."

He took one glance at his nightmarishly messy suitcase and sighed again. Good thing he planned on being the last one off the Enterprise, anyway. It was going to be all he could do to get packed in the next two hours. Not to mention all the paperwork he still had left to do. Maybe he'd make some coffee. He was bound to need it if he was going to make it through the rest of this day.

As it turned out, the engineering team had triggered some kind of failsafe that had been Scotty's personal invention to prevent any unwanted meddling in the warp core's configurations. ...or something like that. Kirk honestly wasn't paying much attention, but Scotty seemed amused by the whole situation; pleased that his creation had done its job after all, rather than concerned about any possible impending doom... so Kirk assumed that must mean they were in no further, in reality never had been in any, danger.

"So... Your gadget worked and we're okay?"

"Aye, Captain! Works like a charm!" Scotty beamed at him in utter glee.

Well, at least that was good news. Still, it was funny to see the man so happy over something that basically amounted to an annoying malfunction.

"That's great, Scotty! Non-existent crisis averted; that's what I like to hear!"

He managed a sarcastic smile, smacked his head engineer on the shoulder, and headed toward the bridge.

The doors swished open and he tried not to appear too pained and worn out as he dragged himself up the array of steps to the captain's chair. Man, was this vacation seriously overdue. He had a feeling that as soon as he got to Riverside, he was just going to collapse into a coma for about three days. Ugh, that sounded amazing right now.

Although, taking a quick glance around the room, he realized he really was going to miss all these guys during the holiday. They'd become like a little family over the last six months of working together. Hell, this crew was probably the closest thing to a family he'd ever known, if he had to be honest with himself. It felt good to finally have a place to belong, and people that he knew he could always count on to have his back.

"Have any plans for the holiday, Captain?" He turned to his left to find Uhura smiling at him in her polite way.

"Gonna get snowed in, Lieutenant. Iowa winters... nothin' better."

She shivered in her tiny red dress and made a grimace. "Eek, that sounds horrible! Of all the places you could go?"

He laughed, shaking his head. "Oh, come on... It's not that bad. Christmas isn't Christmas without ten feet of snow outside!"

She recoiled in mock horror, "No thanks, Captain! If I never see another snowflake again for the rest of my life it will be soon enough."

Chekov spun around in his chair and chimed in. "Ah, ten feet? Ten feet is nozzing! Come to my babushka's house for Christmas, Keptin! Snow piled higher zan zee eye can see! And ice! Ice over everyzing! Is why ve inwented wodka; for cold cold nights in Moscow!"

Sulu looked up from his controls and laughed, "You sure you're old enough for that stuff, Pavel? Wait, they don't still make you sit at the kiddie table at Christmas dinner I hope?"

They all shared a laugh at Chekov's expense, and he laughed along with them.

Kirk turned back to Uhura, "So what are your plans for the holiday, Lieutenant? Assuming you're out to avoid the snow and ice?"

She squared her shoulders and sat up tall, with a satisfied expression over her pretty features. Her dangly earrings jingled against her cheeks as she smugly replied, "I'm going to the beach!"

Everyone laughed again, and Kirk swiveled around in his chair with amusement. Of course. She would.

Now that he was turned in the opposite direction he realized there was one person on the bridge who hadn't interjected his thoughts on holiday vacations. Spock was in his place at the science panel, busily working over some calculations. He didn't seem to have even heard anything that had been said, in fact he was hunched over his station in hyper-focused concentration. Kirk wondered what he could be working on that was so important. The ship was set to arrive at Earth in less than an hour; there was nothing in this sector of space worth analyzing anyway. Oh well, he shrugged it off and turned back towards the view screen at the front of the bridge. Spock was weird like that; who knew what was on his mind at any given moment.

A companionable silence fell over the bridge as everyone settled into their jobs. He liked this time of the day, Kirk thought, even though it could get boring at times. It was a good time just to sit and think, make plans, and reflect.

But just now he was having trouble getting settled. Even though he was bone tired from everything that had gone on this past week, dealing with the Andorian senator and his entourage of fifty lackeys that all had to be housed and fed and entertained for eight days before finally dropping them all off at Starbase 7, not to mention it had just been a while since the crew had had any shore leave to speak of in general... He suddenly felt like running circles around the bridge. Maybe he'd just had too much coffee this morning... But he was anxious to get going. He always felt this way before a trip, or any big event really. He hated sitting around waiting for things to happen. He was a doer. He needed to DO something. And sitting here in this chair waiting for the remaining hour to pass by before they could all get back to their busy lives was getting to him a bit. Plus, now he couldn't stop thinking about Spock running his own mental circles just a few steps behind him. What was he doing? And why hadn't he chimed in with anything when they were all talking about vacation? The Vulcan didn't usually have a lot to say about his personal life, but he usually made at least some attempt at casual conversation on the bridge. So far today he hadn't so much as made eye contact. Well, we'd see about that.

Kirk casually stood up from his chair as if to stretch his legs, and raised his arms high overhead in a big yawn. No one took any notice, all with their noses in their own terminals. Casually, he stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered around the captain's chair and up the low step to the science station. Turning to glance once more over the bridge as a whole (and noting that still no one was paying any attention), he dropped back and caught his elbows on the edge of the console, letting his body hang in midair like a plank.

He just sort of dangled there for a second and didn't say anything. He could wait. In any case he didn't have to wait long before a slightly annoyed Spock turned towards him with a furrowed brow.

"Captain, do you require something?"

Slightly annoyed Spock; he could work with this.

"Nope. I'm good." Kirk turned his pose on the console into a backwards pushup and put on his best "I'm so awesome and strong" face – something Sulu had once called "Blue Steel" ...Yeah he didn't know where that one had come from but it seemed hilariously appropriate.

Spock was obviously not appreciating his antics, but that was okay. At least he was talking.

"Captain, if you will excuse me, I am working on something."

Kirk continued to do push ups, "Yeah. I noticed that. Whatchya workin' on?"

Spock subtly shifted his chair away from the Captain, whom he had deemed to be in an uncomfortable proximity for the duration of this conversation.

"It is... a personal experiment I am undertaking. Nothing that would be of interest to you, Captain."

"Uh huh..." Kirk stopped his push ups and heaved himself back into a standing position. "I see how it is. You keepin' secrets now?" He raised one accusatory eyebrow in Spock's direction.

For a second, the Vulcan's eyes went wide, but immediately narrowed again in renewed annoyance. He'd recognized the comment as a joke. Kirk gave himself a mental pat on the back. Six months ago, Spock would have been horribly offended by such a comment. They were finally starting to "get" one another. About damn time.

"It would seem that one cannot hope to withhold any information from you for very long, Captain, due to your nature to assume that everything concerns you." Spock raised his own accusatory eyebrow in return.

Kirk laughed into his hand and turned around to make his escape to the captain's chair before the entire bridge got in on the conversation. When he realized Chekov was looking at him funny, he turned the laugh into a coughing fit and waved to the navigator.

"Aye, Captain... You don't need to be getting sick just before Christmas, eh?"

"Heh, heh, yeah I'm fine Pavel, thanks..."

The navigator turned back to his console and Kirk shot a glare in Spock's direction. His first officer was sitting there looking back at him with what he could only describe as a smug look of satisfaction on his face. Then he promptly turned back to whatever it was that was holding all of his attention today.

Kirk couldn't believe it. His Vulcan, stick in the mud, no fun, super lame first officer had just made a joke.

* * *

><p>Author's Notes: Hey guys! First of all, thanks so much for reading! This is my first time ever writing Star Trek, so I really hope you guys like it. After finishing my NaNo novel, I wanted to write something fun and lighthearted, with a little holiday cheer thrown in for good measure. So I hope you're down for some snowed-in fun times with lots of cocoa and candy canes for all!<p>

This is completely unbeta'd, and though I've tried to edit it as I go, it's pretty raw. I just got the idea to write this story about a week ago, and since Christmas is coming up so fast, I wanted to just go ahead and get it out there as soon as possible. So I guess what I'm saying is, I hope this doesn't suck. Lol. This first chapter is laying a lot of groundwork, but I promise to get right into the action in my next posting. Anyways thanks for reading and if you like it I hope you'll leave a comment!

See you in Chapter 2!


	2. Chapter 2

The next half hour passed more or less without incident. Aside from the occasional conspiratorial whisper between Chekov and Sulu, the bridge stayed quiet.

Then Sulu's strong voice cut through the silence, "Captain; we've just crossed into Earth airspace."

"Good, Mr. Sulu. Glad to be home."

Uhura turned in her seat suddenly and said, "Captain, Admiral Pike on the line for you."

"Hm, that was fast." He popped out of his seat and headed for the door, just managing to stop himself for a quick goodbye. "Oh, and... I hope you all have a happy holiday. Lookin' forward to a break from your faces for the next week."

His gaze was met with several withered looks and a grin from Chekov. He chanced a look back at Spock's place at the back of the room and was met with the Vulcan's customary calm stare. Apparently his sense of humor had yet to be honed to the point of appreciate that particular joke. Oh well. He turned and stepped through the doors leading to his ready room where Pike was sure to be waiting.

"Afternoon, Admiral."

"Captain. An early Merry Christmas to you."

Pike looked a little better than the last time they had spoken like this, but Kirk was looking forward to seeing him in person. The man had had a serious close call a little over six months ago, and it was good to see him recovering.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Admiral, but I'm really hoping this is a social call... I know I speak for the crew when I saw we're all good and ready for a break and if you called to say, oh just kidding, Christmas is canceled cause of some Klingon attack at the border or something... I might just have a mutiny on my hands."

Pike laughed, which was good to hear. "Haha, no no Jim. We wouldn't do that to ya. I was just wondering if you might be free for dinner this evening. Haven't see ya off-screen in so long, it'd be nice just to catch up."

Kirk warmed at the knowledge that despite their shifting relationship from pseudo father-figure/mentor, to the now more professional relationship they shared within Starfleet, they could still have a casual dinner as friends. He'd always valued the approval of the man who'd initially convinced him to join up, and it was good to know that he still meant more to Pike than just another ship's captain.

"Absolutely! That sounds great."

The older man smiled again. It was good to see him in a good mood. "Wonderful. How's McCallister's sound? I know you like a good shepard's pie."

"Oh man, you just said the magic words..." Pike just knew him all too well...

"Meet you there around 1800?"

"Sounds great, sir. Looking forward to it."

"Great. Pike out."

The screen went blank and Kirk smiled as he slid out of the ergonomic chair and headed for the door. Better get that packing done asap then. He had a new spring in his step as he headed for the turbolift that would take him back to his quarters and the messy suitcase that was awaiting him there. He was lost in his own thoughts, he almost didn't notice the quiet Vulcan already occupying one side of the lift, hands clasped behind his back in customary fashion.

"Oh, hi Spock." He waved, then felt kind of dumb for waving. They were both occupying a space roughly the size of a large linen closet, after all. Spock always managed to make him feel really awkward and stupid somehow. That much hadn't changed.

"Greetings, Captain." Spock inclined his head, then continued to stare straight ahead at the wall.

_Greetings? Who the fuck even says that? _Kirk sighed inwardly.

An awkward silence fell over the lift.

Well. This is fun.

Ah, fuck it.

"So... Mr. Spock..." Kirk crossed his arms and shifted his weight from side to side in some feeble attempt to clear the air.

"Got any plans for your leave?" He turned to Spock expectantly, but his first officer's expression didn't change. As usual.

"I do indeed."

Silence again.

_Oh boy, well that was certainly enlightening._

Kirk couldn't help it. He tried not to... But he just burst out laughing suddenly.

When he managed to contain his very inappropriately timed giggles, he chanced a look up at Spock to find that at last his facial expression had shifted. It was a mixture of super pissed off and... appalled. No, that wasn't quite the right word for it. The Vulcan looked... scandalized. Yeah, that was it.

Kirk straightened up and smoothed his shirt down, putting on his most serious tone. "Listen, Spock. If you're not used to my inexplicable outbursts of emotion by now, I'm not sure you'll ever be. Don't ask me to explain that one."

That earned him a raised eyebrow or two. "No explanation necessary, Captain. Though I do not claim to understand."

"No, I guess not. But I think you're starting to. Understand me, I mean. I'm just full of nonsense and human unpredictability. Once you get that, I'm a lot more easy to figure out."

"I see."

"But you know you aren't exactly so easy to decipher yourself."

"Am I not?"

_Wow, that was feigned innocence if ever I saw it._

Something Kirk would never have expected from the serious Vulcan as recently as two months ago. But he well on his way to interpreting at least some of Spock's elusive emotings.

"I expect you quite often know more than you let on, and hide more than necessary, Mr. Spock."

"Indeed. And you have come to this conclusion, how?"

"Through observation, Mr. Spock. Observation. It's all very scientific." He waved his hand casually.

Spock looked customarily unimpressed, but seemed more at ease now. Which was good, so Kirk would count it as a win.

"No, but I mean... What, specifically, are your plans for leave. I was interested in a little more information than the basic fact that you have some."

At this, the turbolift whirred and came to a halt on their level. The doors opened to a bustling hallway of personnel, all toting various luggage and making for a more crowded corridor than usual. Almost immediately, everyone stopped and saluted the Captain and First Officer, and Kirk found himself feeling uncomfortable all over again.

"Hi everyone! At ease. Happy Holidays and all that."

There were several shouts of "Merry Christmas!" and "Happy Holidays!" from the crowd as they made their way out of the turbolift and down the hallway. The crowd gradually began to move again and then Kirk found himself in front of his own door. He realized he still didn't have an answer to his question, but Spock was obviously discomfited by the close proximity of so many people and suddenly the Vulcan was nodding his farewell and heading off down the hallway to his own quarters. Damn.

"Uh, see ya Spock!" was all he had time to shout before the crowded hallway drowned out his voice. He sighed and keyed the code for his door. Well, that bag wasn't going to pack itself.

* * *

><p>Author's Notes: Hi guys! Thanks so much for the hits and kudos. It really helps encourage me to write, knowing that at least someone is actually reading this. Hope you like it! If you do (and you want to encourage me even more than you already have) please leave me a quick comment saying so.<p>

So, I apologize for the extreme shortness of these chapters. I just haven't had nearly as much time to write over the last couple of weeks as I expected to have... a few minutes here, an hour there... It's hard to find the time. But I still really want to get the bulk of this story done before Christmas Day, so I tried to crank some plot out today.

Now, I don't know about you guys' holiday celebrations... But I've got some more cookies and rum balls to make.

Take care! 3

PS: I promise they'll get off the ship soon!


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